editorNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Jon Hamilton is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. Currently he focuses on neuroscience, health risks, and extreme weather. Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Hamilton was part of NPR's team of science reporters and editors who went to Japan to cover the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Hamilton contributed several pieces to the Science Desk series "The Human Edge," which looked at what makes people the most versatile and powerful species on Earth. His reporting explained how humans use stories, how the highly evolved human brain is made from primitive parts, and what autism reveals about humans social brains. In 2009, Hamilton received the Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award for his piece on the neuroscience behind treating autism. Before joining NPR in 1998, Hamilton was a media fellow with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation studying health policy issues. He reported on states that have improved their Medicaid programs for the poor byNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Jon HamiltonWed, 13 Dec 2017 08:18:54 +0000Jon Hamiltonhttp://kmuw.org
Jon HamiltonCopyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: All this week we are talking to our friends here at NPR about their favorite things from 2017. And we're nerding out here. These are not, like, simple best-of lists. Today, science correspondent Jon Hamilton is here to share his highly specific superlative. Hello there. JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Hey. MCEVERS: OK. What do you have? HAMILTON: I have got what I consider, like, the weirdest and coolest advance in brain science. And what it is is researchers have gotten really good at growing tiny human brains in the lab. MCEVERS: OK, like, in a petri dish? HAMILTON: Well, kind of. They actually grow them in something called a bioreactor. And then as they grow, they actually begin to assemble themselves very much the way cells do in the human brain during development in the fetus. MCEVERS: Do they look like tiny brains? HAMILTON: Well, a little bit. They are about the size of a pinhead, so they're considerably smaller than a humanHow Scientists Are Growing Mini Brains In Petri Dishes For Experimentshttp://kmuw.org/post/how-scientists-are-growing-mini-brains-petri-dishes-experiments
92466 as http://kmuw.orgTue, 12 Dec 2017 21:34:00 +0000How Scientists Are Growing Mini Brains In Petri Dishes For ExperimentsJon HamiltonWhy Your Brain Has Trouble Bailing Out Of A Bad Planhttp://kmuw.org/post/why-your-brain-has-trouble-bailing-out-bad-plan
92244 as http://kmuw.orgThu, 07 Dec 2017 21:00:00 +0000Why Your Brain Has Trouble Bailing Out Of A Bad PlanJon HamiltonPeople who experience frequent migraines may soon have access to a new class of drugs. In a pair of large studies, two drugs that tweak brain circuits involved in migraine each showed they could reduce the frequency of attacks without causing side effects, researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine . "They offer the first migraine treatment that's actually aimed at the disorder," says Peter Goadsby , an author of one of the studies and a professor of neurology at King's College in London. Current migraine prevention treatments consist primarily of drugs designed to treat high blood pressure, epilepsy and depression. "We give [patients] a choice between a beta blocker where they'll feel tired, or we tell them they can go on an antidepressant, which will make them sleepy and put on weight," Goadsby says. The new drugs use special antibodies to dampen a system in the brain that modulates pain. The effect is a bit like soundproofing, says Stephen Silberstein , a study authorNew Drugs Could Prevent Migraine Headaches For Some Peoplehttp://kmuw.org/post/new-drugs-could-prevent-migraine-headaches-some-people
92031 as http://kmuw.orgMon, 04 Dec 2017 08:50:00 +0000New Drugs Could Prevent Migraine Headaches For Some PeopleJon HamiltonIf you're losing sleep over the blue light coming from your phone, there's an app for that. In fact, there are now lots of apps that promise to improve sleep by filtering out the blue light produced by phones, tablets, computers and even televisions. But how well do these apps work? There haven't been any big studies to answer that question. So I phoned a couple of scientists who study the link between blue light exposure and sleep. My first call is to Lisa Ostrin , an assistant professor at the University of Houston College of Optometry. Ostrin owns an iPhone. And every iPhone comes with an app called Night Shift that lets you filter out blue light. So does Ostrin use Night Shift? "Yes I do," she tells me. Without a filtering app, cellphones and tablets expose users to an alarming amount of blue light, she says, "Especially as people are lying in bed and have their screens just a few inches from their face." And all that blue light prevents special photoreceptor cells in the eye fromApps Can Cut Blue Light From Devices, But Do They Help You Sleep?http://kmuw.org/post/apps-can-cut-blue-light-devices-do-they-help-you-sleep
91716 as http://kmuw.orgMon, 27 Nov 2017 10:02:00 +0000Apps Can Cut Blue Light From Devices, But Do They Help You Sleep?Jon HamiltonThe goal is simple: a drug that can relieve chronic pain without causing addiction. But achieving that goal has proved difficult, says Edward Bilsky , a pharmacologist who serves as the provost and chief academic officer at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, Wash. "We know a lot more about pain and addiction than we used to," says Bilsky, "But it's been hard to get a practical drug." Bilsky is moderating a panel on pain, addiction and opioid abuse at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C., this week. Brain scientists have become increasingly interested in pain and addiction as opioid use has increased . About 2 million people in the U.S. now abuse opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But at least 25 million people suffer from chronic pain, according to an analysis by the National Institutes of Health. That means they have experienced daily pain for more than three months. The question is how to cut opioid abuseBrain Scientists Look Beyond Opioids To Conquer Painhttp://kmuw.org/post/brain-scientists-look-beyond-opioids-conquer-pain
91100 as http://kmuw.orgMon, 13 Nov 2017 10:02:00 +0000Brain Scientists Look Beyond Opioids To Conquer PainJon HamiltonCopyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: More than 30,000 brain scientists are in Washington, D.C., this week attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting. One of the hot topics this year is mental disorders such as depression and schizophrenia and autism. NPR science correspondent Jon Hamilton has just come from the meeting to talk about some of what he's been seeing and hearing. Hi, John. Thanks for coming. JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Hi. MARTIN: So how does this work contribute to understanding mental disorders in people? HAMILTON: Twenty years ago, I'd say it didn't contribute much, but things are really changing. And I was really surprised. I was going through the abstracts to this year's meeting, and there were nearly a thousand papers that mentioned depression. There were 500 that mentioned schizophrenia or autism. And just this morning, there was this study on how - looking at the brain tissue of people with obsessive compulsive disorder and how it's different.In D.C., Brain Science Meets Behavioral Science To Shed Light On Mental Disordershttp://kmuw.org/post/dc-brain-science-meets-behavioral-science-shed-light-mental-disorders
91094 as http://kmuw.orgSun, 12 Nov 2017 22:51:00 +0000In D.C., Brain Science Meets Behavioral Science To Shed Light On Mental DisordersJon HamiltonWhen people don't get enough sleep, certain brain cells literally slow down. A study that recorded directly from neurons in the brains of 12 people found that sleep deprivation causes the bursts of electrical activity that brain cells use to communicate to become slower and weaker, a team reports online Monday in Nature Medicine. The finding could help explain why a lack of sleep impairs a range of mental functions, says Dr. Itzhak Fried , an author of the study and a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles. "You can imagine driving a car and suddenly somebody jumps in front of the car at night," Fried says. "If you are sleep-deprived, your cells are going to react in a different way than in your normal state." The finding comes from an unusual study of patients being evaluated for surgery to correct severe epilepsy. As part of the evaluation, doctors place wires in the brain to find out where a patient's seizures are starting. That allows Fried and aSleepless Night Leaves Some Brain Cells As Sluggish As You Feelhttp://kmuw.org/post/sleepless-night-leaves-some-brain-cells-sluggish-you-feel
90848 as http://kmuw.orgMon, 06 Nov 2017 20:20:00 +0000Sleepless Night Leaves Some Brain Cells As Sluggish As You FeelJon Hamiltonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZZPMcs482M When it comes to brain training, some workouts seem to work better than others. A comparison of the two most common training methods scientists use to improve memory and attention found that one was twice as effective as the other. The more effective method also changed brain activity in a part of the brain involved in high-level thinking. But neither method made anyone smarter, says Kara Blacker, the study's lead author and a researcher at The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine in Bethesda, Md. "Our hypothesis was that training might improve fluid intelligence or IQ," Blacker says. "But that's not what we found." Blacker did the memory research when she was part of a team at Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. The results were reported in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement. The team compared two approaches to improving working memory, which acts as a kind of mentalIn Memory Training Smackdown, One Method Dominateshttp://kmuw.org/post/memory-training-smackdown-one-method-dominates
90182 as http://kmuw.orgMon, 23 Oct 2017 14:37:00 +0000In Memory Training Smackdown, One Method DominatesJon HamiltonBrain imaging studies have a diversity problem. That's what researchers concluded after they re-analyzed data from a large study that used MRI to measure brain development in children from 3 to 18. Like most brain imaging studies of children, this one included a disproportionate number of kids who have highly educated parents with relatively high household incomes, the team reported Thursday in the journal Nature Communications . For example, parents of study participants were three times more likely than typical U.S. parents to hold an advanced degree. And participants' family incomes were much more likely to exceed $100,000 a year. So the researchers decided to see whether the results would be different if the sample represented the U.S. population, says Kaja LeWinn , an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. "We were able to weight that data so it looked more like the U.S." in terms of race, income, education and other variables, sheStudies Skewed By Focus On Well-Off, Educated Brains http://kmuw.org/post/studies-skewed-focus-well-educated-brains
89927 as http://kmuw.orgMon, 16 Oct 2017 17:56:00 +0000Studies Skewed By Focus On Well-Off, Educated Brains Jon HamiltonFresh evidence that the body's immune system interacts directly with the brain could lead to a new understanding of diseases from multiple sclerosis to Alzheimer's. A study of human and monkey brains found lymphatic vessels — a key part of the body's immune system — in a membrane that surrounds the brain and nervous system, a team reported Tuesday in the online journal eLife. Lymphatic vessels are a part of the lymphatic system, which extends throughout the body much like our network of veins and arteries. Instead of carrying blood, though, these vessels carry a clear fluid called lymph, which contains both immune cells and waste products. The new finding bolsters recent evidence in rodents that the brain interacts with the body's lymphatic system to help fend off diseases and remove waste. Until a few years ago, scientists believed that the brain's immune and waste removal systems operated independently. The discovery of lymphatic vessels near the surface of the brain could lead to aBrain's Link To Immune System Might Help Explain Alzheimer'shttp://kmuw.org/post/brains-link-immune-system-might-help-explain-alzheimers
89378 as http://kmuw.orgTue, 03 Oct 2017 21:00:00 +0000Brain's Link To Immune System Might Help Explain Alzheimer'sJon HamiltonCopyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: A degenerative brain disease called CTE keeps showing up in football players who have died. Just yesterday scientists revealed that Aaron Hernandez, who once played for the New England Patriots, had a severe form of the disease. Hernandez was found guilty of murder in 2015 and committed suicide in prison in April of this year. NPR science correspondent Jon Hamilton is with us now to talk about the case. Hey, Jon. JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Hey. MCEVERS: So Aaron Hernandez was only 27 when he died. And he stopped playing football when he was 23, yet he was found to have severe CTE. Is that unusual? HAMILTON: It is in the sense that most cases of CTE have been found in older, retired players. But that may be actually a little misleading because you can only diagnose this problem in someone who has died, and people don't usually die in their 20s. Also, there have, you know, really been other young players with CTE. Some people mightScans Show Former NFL Player Aaron Hernandez Had A Severe Case Of CTEhttp://kmuw.org/post/scans-show-former-nfl-player-aaron-hernandez-had-severe-case-cte
88925 as http://kmuw.orgFri, 22 Sep 2017 20:54:00 +0000Scans Show Former NFL Player Aaron Hernandez Had A Severe Case Of CTEJon HamiltonAnother hurricane, another health care horror story. At least that's how it looked when eight patients died at a nursing home in Hollywood, Florida. The facility lost its air conditioning several days after Hurricane Irma struck. That event conjured memories of the scores of elderly who died in Louisiana hospitals and nursing homes following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But it would be misleading to attribute the Florida deaths primarily to Irma. And it would be a mistake to assume that most other health care facilities in southern Florida were unprepared for a hurricane. Here's what I saw as a reporter who covered the Florida nursing home deaths, but also visited Miami-area hospitals, clinics, shelters for people with medical problems, and even the area's largest dialysis center. First, the nursing home, called the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills. Yes, it experienced a partial loss of power after Irma. But the real problem appeared to be that the staff didn't act quickly enoughWhen Irma Arrived, Most Florida Health Care Facilities Were Readyhttp://kmuw.org/post/when-irma-arrived-most-florida-health-care-facilities-were-ready
88769 as http://kmuw.orgTue, 19 Sep 2017 09:13:00 +0000When Irma Arrived, Most Florida Health Care Facilities Were ReadyJon HamiltonIt's not just what you say that matters. It's how you say it. Take the phrase, "Here's Johnny." When Ed McMahon used it to introduce Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, the words were an enthusiastic greeting. But in The Shining, Jack Nicholson used the same two words to convey murderous intent. Now scientists are reporting in the journal Science that they have identified specialized brain cells that help us understand what a speaker really means. These cells do this by keeping track of changes in the pitch of the voice. "We found that there were groups of neurons that were specialized and dedicated just for the processing of pitch," says Dr. Eddie Chang , a professor of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Chang says these neurons allow the brain to detect "the melody of speech," or intonation, while other specialized brain cells identify vowels and consonants. "Intonation is about how we say things," Chang says. "It's important because we can change theReally? Really. How Our Brains Figure Out What Words Mean Based On How They're Saidhttp://kmuw.org/post/really-really-how-our-brains-figure-out-what-words-mean-based-how-theyre-said
87707 as http://kmuw.orgThu, 24 Aug 2017 20:12:00 +0000Really? Really. How Our Brains Figure Out What Words Mean Based On How They're SaidJon HamiltonThe human brain knows what it knows. And so, it appears, does a rat brain. Rats have shown that they have the ability to monitor the strength of their own memories, researchers from Providence College reported this month in the journal Animal Cognition. Brain scientists call this sort of ability metacognition . It's a concept that became famous in 2002, when then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained to reporters: There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. Rumsfeld wasn't talking about rats. But he could have been, says Michael Beran , a comparative psychologist and associate professor at Georgia State University who was not part of the research. The new study of rats offers "consistent and clear evidence that they have these glimmerings of metacognitive monitoring," Beran says. The finding suggests an ancient evolutionary path that eventually led to humans'From Rats To Humans, A Brain Knows When It Can't Rememberhttp://kmuw.org/post/rats-humans-brain-knows-when-it-cant-remember
86542 as http://kmuw.orgFri, 28 Jul 2017 20:40:00 +0000From Rats To Humans, A Brain Knows When It Can't RememberJon HamiltonGina Mazany grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. And that's where she had her first fight. "It was right after I turned 18," she recalls. A local bar had a boxing ring, and Mazany decided to give it a shot. Her opponent was an older woman with a "mom haircut." "She beat the crap out of me," Mazany says. "Like she didn't knock me out, she didn't finish me. But she just knocked me around for three rounds. And I remember, later that night I was very, very nauseous. I was throwing up that night." It was her first concussion. Thanks to research on boxers and football players, both athletes and the public are becoming more aware of the dangers of sports-related head injuries. Yet there is little data on participants like Mazany. That's because, unlike the vast majority of athletes studied, she is a woman. "We classically have always known the male response to brain injury," says Mark Burns , at Georgetown University. But there have been remarkably few studies of females. The bias runs throughoutFemale Athletes Are Closing The Gender Gap When It Comes To Concussionshttp://kmuw.org/post/female-athletes-are-closing-gender-gap-when-it-comes-concussions
86295 as http://kmuw.orgMon, 24 Jul 2017 08:45:00 +0000Female Athletes Are Closing The Gender Gap When It Comes To ConcussionsJon HamiltonDoctors use words like "aggressive" and "highly malignant" to describe the type of brain cancer discovered in Arizona Sen. John McCain. The cancer is a glioblastoma, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement Wednesday. It was diagnosed after doctors surgically removed a blood clot from above McCain's left eye. Doctors who were not involved in his care say the procedure likely removed much of the tumor as well. Glioblastomas, which are the most common malignant brain tumor, tend to be deadly. Each year in the U.S., about 12,000 people are diagnosed with the tumor. Most die within two years, though some survive more than a decade. "It's frustrating," says Nader Sanai , director of neurosurgical oncology at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. Only "a very small number" of patients beat the disease, he says. And the odds are especially poor for older patients like McCain, who is 80. "The older you are, the worse your prognosis is," Sanai says, in part because older patients often arenJohn McCain Was Diagnosed With A Glioblastoma, Among The Deadliest Of Cancershttp://kmuw.org/post/john-mccain-was-diagnosed-glioblastoma-among-deadliest-cancers
86185 as http://kmuw.orgThu, 20 Jul 2017 16:37:00 +0000John McCain Was Diagnosed With A Glioblastoma, Among The Deadliest Of CancersJon HamiltonHarsh life experiences appear to leave African-Americans vulnerable to Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, researchers reported Sunday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in London. Several teams presented evidence that poverty, disadvantage and stressful life events are strongly associated with cognitive problems in middle age and dementia later in life among African-Americans. The findings could help explain why African-Americans are twice as likely as white Americans to develop dementia. And the research suggests genetic factors are not a major contributor. "The increased risk seems to be a matter of experience rather than ancestry," says Megan Zuelsdorff , a postdoctoral fellow in the Health Disparities Research Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Scientists have struggled to understand why African-Americans are so likely to develop dementia. They are more likely to have conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes, which can affectStress And Poverty May Explain High Rates Of Dementia In African-Americanshttp://kmuw.org/post/stress-and-poverty-may-explain-high-rates-dementia-african-americans
85971 as http://kmuw.orgSun, 16 Jul 2017 06:05:00 +0000Stress And Poverty May Explain High Rates Of Dementia In African-AmericansJon HamiltonThanks to Sigmund Freud, we all know what it means to dream about swords, sticks and umbrellas. Or maybe we don't. "For 100 years, we got stuck into that Freudian perspective on dreams, which turned out to be not scientifically very accurate," says Robert Stickgold , a sleep researcher and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "So it's only been in the last 15 to 20 years that we've really started making progress." Today, most brain scientists reject Freud's idea that dreams are highly symbolic representations of unconscious (and usually sexual) desire. That dream umbrella, they say, is probably just an umbrella. But researchers are still trying to figure out what dreams do represent, and what their purpose is. "There's not really a solid theory about why dreaming is there," says Benjamin Baird , a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin ­– Madison. "It's a big mystery." But it's not surprising that we do dream Forget Freud: Dreams Replay Our Everyday Liveshttp://kmuw.org/post/forget-freud-dreams-replay-our-everyday-lives
84999 as http://kmuw.orgThu, 22 Jun 2017 15:42:00 +0000 Forget Freud: Dreams Replay Our Everyday LivesJon HamiltonResearchers are working to revive a radical treatment for Parkinson's disease. The treatment involves transplanting healthy brain cells to replace cells killed off by the disease. It's an approach that was tried decades ago and then set aside after disappointing results. Now, groups in Europe, the U.S. and Asia are preparing to try again, using cells they believe are safer and more effective. "There have been massive advances," says Claire Henchcliffe , a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. "I'm optimistic." "We are very optimistic about ability of [the new] cells to improve patients' symptoms," says Viviane Tabar , a neurosurgeon and stem cell biologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Henchcliffe and Tabar joined several other prominent scientists to describe plans to revive brain cell transplants during a session Tuesday at the International Society for Stem Cell Research meeting in Boston. Their upbeat message marks a dramatic turnaround for theBrain Cell Transplants Are Being Tested Once Again For Parkinson'shttp://kmuw.org/post/brain-cell-transplants-are-being-tested-once-again-parkinsons
84607 as http://kmuw.orgTue, 13 Jun 2017 20:12:00 +0000Brain Cell Transplants Are Being Tested Once Again For Parkinson'sJon HamiltonMost people have an uncanny ability to tell one face from another, even though the differences are extremely small. Now scientists think they know how our brains do this. In macaque monkeys, which share humans' skill with faces, groups of specialized neurons in the brain called face cells appeared to divide up the task of assessing a face, a team at the California Institute of Technology reports Thursday in the journal Cell . "The cells were coding faces in a very simple way," says Doris Tsao , an author of the study and a professor of biology at Caltech. "Each neuron was coding a different aspect of the face." The actual coding involves some complicated math. But the approach is a bit like having one cell measure a variable like the distance between a person's eyes while another cell looks at skin texture, Tsao says. And the system is so efficient that the team was able to accurately reconstruct the face a monkey was seeing using the signals from just 205 neurons. When placed side byCracking The Code That Lets The Brain ID Any Face, Fasthttp://kmuw.org/post/cracking-code-lets-brain-id-any-face-fast
84074 as http://kmuw.orgThu, 01 Jun 2017 20:44:00 +0000Cracking The Code That Lets The Brain ID Any Face, Fast